Saturday, 7 October 2017

Hello! Wow it seems a long time ago since I've last written on here and boy have I missed it! Work's been crazy the last few weeks so I haven't quite found the time or energy to sit down and blog. But... I'm full of energy today, it's the weekend and work is going well - so things are looking up!

As it's the weekend, we've got friends round for dinner tonight so as always the bf does the main cooking and I try my hand at the dessert. I knew I wanted chocolate and caramel so I decided to cobble together my take on a salted caramel chocolate torte. It's not the most glamourous of things I've made, but it's definitely worth a try!

Let me know what you think :)

What you need:

A loose-bottomed tart tin - mine is a medium sized one as know this will be very rich!
Shortcrust pastry - you can either buy it or make it yourself.
397g Carnation Caramel
1 tbsp sea salt
300g plain chocolate
600ml tub double cream
25g icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolates to decorate - I went with Maltesers
Vanilla ice cream to serve

Method:

Step 1: Place your shortcrust pastry into your tart tin and bake for around 10-15 minutes on 200.

Step 2: Place 2 tbsp of caramel into a bowl and cover and place in the fridge. You'll need this later!

Step 3: Stir in your sea salt to the remainder of the caramel to make your salted caramel. Depending on how salty you like it, you can add more than 1 tbsp. Spoon this into the centre of the pastry base and spread out so it's evenly covered. Pop in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Step 4: Take your bowl of caramel from the fridge and stir in 1 tbsp of cream and then cover and place back in the fridge again.

Step 5: Melt all your chocolate over simmering water and then stir in the remainder of the cream until you have a smooth, shiny and quite thick chocolate mixture. Then sift in your icing sugar and stir in the vanilla extract. Take off the heat and leave the mixture to cool on the side for about 10-15 minutes.

Step 6: Once cool, pour the chocolate mixture around the edge of the torte and then pour in the rest and smooth the surface. By doing it this way you're sealing in the caramel in the centre. Chill for around 6 hours till it's firm. Mines been in the fridge for about 12 hours now waiting for our guests to arrive later.

Step 7: Arrange your chocolates on top whatever you like and then use your caramel/cream mixture to decorate. I went with squiggle lines but again do whatever takes your fancy :) Then pop back in the fridge and serve with ice cream or cream.